|
|
| Information |
|
|
Newsletters in Plain Text or HTML - Which Work Better?
A common question asked when you first set out to write an email newsletter is whether it should be a plain text email or HTML (web page style). This is an important consideration since your choice impacts on how many people read your newsletter and how they respond to it. Let's look at the obvious pros and cons of each format. HTML Emails THE GOOD
THE BAD
Plain Text Emails THE GOOD
THE BAD
Why Do You Have a Newsletter? Let's cut to the chase here. Why do you have a newsletter? If you are running an Internet business your newsletter functions as a customer retention tool, sending out periodic reminders to pull your prospects/customers back to your site. Newsletters themselves also function as a direct sales tool. It doesn't matter if you are selling affiliate products, your own products, a service or information, your newsletter is meant to do one thing - illicit a response from its audience. In order for your newsletter readers to feel compelled enough to take action your newsletter must clearly state it's message AND create enough of a pull, usually via emotional tugging, to get the reader to do something. The same rules that apply to websites and copywriting apply to newsletters except you have even less time to convince your reader to do something. Newsletters fall into the domain of email, the most popular web activity. Email is mainstream, it has penetration and people of all ages and backgrounds know how to use it. Consequently the learning curve is a little higher and your readership knows how to at least complete the basic functions with email. This means that they are quite capable of giving each email about 1 seconds worth of attention before clicking that delete button. That's not a lot of time to convince them that your email is worth reading. Should I use Plain Text or HTML Newsletters? In my opinion, plain text should be your choice for email newsletter format. Why? Because of the numbers. Email newsletters are a form of direct response marketing and in direct response marketing the numbers matter. From the point of view of a small business owner with limited time and resources you want to maximise the results you get from your newsletters. You want a lot of responses to whatever your newsletter is trying to do. You should be able to easily test different copy and see which works best so you can maximise the numbers. It's all about the numbers... Your newsletter must hit the reader quickly and compel them to read on. Any delays or presentation errors are going kill your chance of capturing the attention of the reader. While plain text emails are not immune to display errors (more on this later) they are a lot more likely to be digested by the reader even if things don't format exactly how you want them to. A plain text email is more likely to reach a larger amount of people than a HTML email simply because plain text is more compliant to standards. Plain text emails are less likely to be blocked by SPAM filters. Plain text emails will display immediately, there are no download times waiting for graphics to finish loading. Plain text emails are more likely to display properly regardless of what email client your subscribers use. All this adds up to plain text emails being read more often...better numbers...see a pattern here? Words Sell Bells and whistles are nice. Interactive toys and flashy lights and sounds are great. But ultimately it's words that sell. If you write compelling newsletter copy aimed at your target audience that have been carefully selected by the methods used to acquire newsletter sign-ups, you have the perfect vehicle to illicit a response using words that sell. Why dilute your message by wrapping it within colours and images or overstimulating your readers by providing too much information when a few paragraphs can create your desired results more effectively. Why Not Use Both Plain Text and HTML? Good idea! If you have the resources and skills to produce a quality HTML and plain text newsletter then by all means offer both to your audience and let them nominate which they prefer, or better still have the email automatically display the appropriate format by detecting what type of email client they have. If you offer both be sure to test to make sure it's worthwhile. Are more people responding to plain text emails? Well in that case send everyone plain text. In my case I'm a small business owner and I'm going to be writing the newsletters myself. I do not have time nor the skills to create a new HTML webpage for every newsletter I produce. I could perhaps have a nice standard template designed which I use for newsletters but as I wrote above, I believe that is a waste of time. Words sell, so I'll focus on creating emotionally compelling words for my newsletters rather than waste time trying to get a box to align right correctly. Tips for Better Plain Text Newsletters TELL A FRIEND Remember how I talked about the numbers? Your efforts should be focused on ensuring the maximum number of people are exposed to your email so your emotionally compelling and convincing newsletter can work it's magic. This doesn't have to be limited to just your newsletter subscribers -- your subscribers can be turned into evangelists for your newsletter. Make it easy for your subscribers to forward your newsletter on to friends and associates - suggest it to them at the end of the newsletter. Of course for this work you better be creating a damn interesting newsletter. WORD WRAPPING Plain text can format incorrectly and one of the most common problems is line breaks. Either lines breaking too early causing your sentences to lookdisjointed andclumsy, or no line breaks at all, causing one of those nasty horizontal scrollbars to appear and your reader to read off the page to finish a sentence. The screen resolution of your subscribers computers can also impact how your text wraps causing these problems. You can't control the monitor resolution of your readers or what email client they use, all you can do is try and account for as many variables as possible. To compensate for this problem you have to set a characters-per-line limitation. I've researched into newsletter formatting and different people give different suggestions, from 68 characters per line to 63. I've decided to recommend to you the round number of 60 characters per line. This will give you nice compact paragraphs made up of nice compact sentences that are likely to avoid most word wrapping (or lack thereof) problems your readers might experience. On extremely high resolutions there will be a lot of white space and your email might look like one big long tower of text but that's still a lot better than broken sentences or horizontal scrollbars and won't be too common a problem. How To Set Characters Per Line Limitations You didn't think I would tell you what to do without giving you practical advice on how to do it would I?! Of course not. Format Text provided by Web-Source.net will handle email newsletter formatting to any character width you specify. Better still it can even undo the current character spacing on any text you have so it's definitely a tool worth book marking. Newsletters Are An Important Tool For Your Online Business Many of the most successful Internet entrepreneurs are wealthy because they have massive (10,000+) lists of highly targeted subscribers that they have been building for years. One well written affiliate product email to a good list can create thousands of dollars of sales and you don't even supply the product. Better still once you have a solid list you can contact similar focused online marketers and carefully select the right cross promotional activities that can double your exposure with one email to their list. Of course you have to have your own list to make available for cross promotions before you can expect to work with other people - the smart/persistent/rich help each other to get richer. Even if you are using your newsletter as a step in the conversion process to generate sales of your own products or services it's a wise to stay up to date on good newsletter management techniques. By focusing on the numbers you can maximise direct responses that will lead to more sales as visitors become prospects and prospects become clients. By Yaro Starak Do you want to profit from your own successful home based Internet business? Learn from Yaro Starak, a young entrepreneur from Australia. He works part time from home on several web based business that generate between $2,000 and $8,000 per month. Get your free articles and audio now - visit his Internet Business Blog.
Latest News:Site: Yahoo! News Search Results for news ABC News president David Westin stepping down ABC News President David Westin says he's stepping down at the end of the year after more than 13 years on the job. News Ltd buys Getprice NEWS Ltd is preparing itself for the online retailing explosion with the acquisition of comparison shopping site, Getprice.com.au. Alabama news links: Judge gives man 187 years in prison on child porn convictions News from around Alabama. News Near You for Sept. 6 This daily column features short news items from some of the 20 localities that make up the greater Richmond area. If you have a news item, call 649-6990 or e-mail us at news@times dispatch.com NEWS NEAR YOU PowhatanB-24 bomber pilot Neely Young will speak at the World War II Round ... News Briefs Good news for working mothers. Minister of Education, Gideon Saar, announced Monday his decision to extend tuition subsidies for children aged 3-4 in public nurseries. BREAKING NEWS - Child struck by car, car doesn't stop TUCSON - News 4 has confirmed that a child was hit by a vehicle in the area of Drexel and Mission. Officers on scene say the vehicle did not stop. They are actively searching for the driver. ABC News president David Westin says he's quitting at end of year, after more than 13 years NEW YORK - ABC News President David Westin says he's stepping down at the end of the year after more than 13 years on the job. Westin said in a memo to his staff on Monday that he told his bosses a month ago that he was ready to leave. ABC News chief tells top staff he will resign The longtime president of ABC News, David Westin, Monday revealed to a number of his staff that he will resign Tuesday, The New York Times reported. An insider told the Times that Westin had been in a long-running dispute with the management of the network, including ABC?s parent company... Northwest News: John Canzano blames lousy city leadership for baseball's demise in Portland; Say so long to the ... Northwest News is a daily roundup of what's making headlines in the Pacific Northwest. News by location Get local and national news updates via E-mail. LUMBERTON - The Robeson County Board of Commissioners is expected to approve a resolution Tuesday formally adopting a quarter-cent sales tax increase. Site: news - Google News AP Top News at 7:45 pm EDT - The Associated Press
MORE RESOURCES: Site: Yahoo! News Search Results for ezine marketing UPDATED Dealers get 5 phone leads for every 1 through web Dealers have been reminded not to lose track of telephone leads because of increased focus on online. New sales and marketing head at Bentley Bentley Motors has recruited Alasdair Stewart as its sales and marketing director, following the departure of Stuart McCullough. VW steps up communication with its van customers Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is targeting new and existing customers with a new quarterly electronic newsletter. The TRG Trade Spotlight Reaches Two Years in Circulation Trade Risk Guaranty (TRG) launched an International Trade Ezine known as the TRG Trade Spotlight in August of 2008. After two years in circulation that company continues to release this popular series of articles. Vertu Motors confident on delivering positive half year results Vertu Motors has reported a rise in private new car sales volumes by 6.7% on a like for like basis according to the group?s half year trading update. Boyd Morrison: To Self-Publish or Not to Self-Publish When deciding whether to indie publish, don't overlook all the questions traditionally published authors have been dealing with for years. Research reveals 09 cars holding values best The Audi A3 is proving to hold more of its value than any other car sold last year according to residual value tracking by Auto Trader. Lexus launches iPad app An iPad application has been developed for Lexus. IMI helps tackle the industry gender bias A group of women have taken part in an initiative designed to tackle the gender bias in the automotive industry. Saab consolidates customer relationship management Saab has appointed a single company to handle its customer relationship management (CRM) services across seven countries in Europe, including the UK. Site: ezine marketing - Google News How To Become An Overnight Success With Ezine Marketing - lonad News
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Surefire Ways to Pack a Punch With Your Ezines & Newsletters Newsletters, or ezines, can be extremely effective marketing tools for your business. They put your name in front of your potential clients, regular clients, and peers while showing your expertise and professionalism. Is Your Ezine Being Zapped? About a year ago I wrote an article titled 'WinningThe War On Sp^m'. Unfortunately, the war on sp^m isnot being won at all. The News About Newsletters "A newsletter is the paring knife of communication tools. It seems simple and is easy to take for granted. How to Get More Sign-Ups to Your Newsletter It never seems to amaze me how often I still see to this very day where people have gone to the effort of creating a hum dinger newsletter and paid for a good emailing responder but haven't made their offer juicy enough on their website to get mass amounts of people to sign up.Now think to yourself, if your visiting a website would you truly sign up if it all reads is "Sign Up Here for My Newsletter" or would you be more enticed to sign up to something that reads more like "Sign Up for my Newsletter and go in the Competition to Receive a Free T-shirt" (or whatever it is you got to offer). Guaranteed Ways to Build Up Your Ezine List Here are tips gleaned from roughly 5 years spent building up an ezine list. I've also incorporated comments and tips from Jenna Glatzer, who successfully built her list up to 75,000 at her excellent site, www. What's In Your Resource Box (SIG File)? One of the most important things you can do to improve your visibility and connect with customers or clients is to create a strong personal branding statement in your resource box. I'm not talking about adding your job title. How To Write A Newsletter Learn how to write your newsletter in as little as twenty minutes. You will have all the help in creating and writing your own newsletter. 13 Ways To A Build A List Of Readers Of Your Ezine If you have an ezine or online newsletter you want to send it to potential customers. In order to send it you need a list of people who want to receive it. Newsletters in Plain Text or HTML - Which Work Better? A common question asked when you first set out to write an email newsletter is whether it should be a plain text email or HTML (web page style). This is an important consideration since your choice impacts on how many people read your newsletter and how they respond to it. Top 10 Reasons to Use a Blog to Publish Your Ezine Blogs are the hottest thing going these days when it comes to marketing on the Internet. A blog is a delivery medium. The Power of Newsletters When discussing the possibility of creating a newsletter for one of my clients, he asked me, "How will a newsletter help me get sales?""Great question," I replied. Here's how:A newsletter is a form of contact, just like a phone call, visit or direct mail postcard. Three Ways You can Use the Ezines to Increase Your Sales ***1. FIRST PROMOTIONAL METHOD: Write ezine articles and submit to ezine publishers-Writing ezine articles is one of the three best promotional methods that I'd ever know. Email Newsletter Marketing Is Alive and Well: The Case for Continuing Newsletter Efforts With the arrival of syndication or RSS technology, many claim the email newsletter is dead. Not true. Article Marketing 202 -- Creating a Viral Lead-Generating Machine There is a simple system for creating a viral lead-generating machine. You can follow this system whether you have been marketing for years or for one day. Achieving Success with Ezine Advertising Achieving success is clearly up to you, not to anybody else. In fact is a simple equation involving tools, work and goals. Practical Strategies To Boost Your Ezine Readership Do you have a fresh ezine ready to start taking subscribers but don't know how to attract them?Maybe you have a list already operating that you want to enhance.There are many practical methods available online that can be applied to either situation, some free and some not. Newsletter Publishing Tips I can't think of a better way to sell your products andkeep your readers coming back for more than publishinga newsletter.It's worked for both online and offline businesses and it continues to rank high among sales promotional tools. The Secret Truth About Writing Great Sales Copy. Did you know that most people find it difficult to write sales copy that works?You see there is this idea that sales is all about lies and that you have to be really tricky and clever with words to sell your product.This is absolute bollocks. 8 Things To Think About Before You Start Advertising Profitably In Ezines! Advertising in ezines is possibly the most effective way of generating fast sales. Ezine advertising also consumes very little of your time. Improve Your Online Network With A Powerful Ezine Many online business owners and marketers use a variety of tools to make their business successful. Good strategies include maintaining a web site, publishing an ezine, joining affiliate programs, advertising on other people's ezines, and much, much more.
|
| Home | Site Map | Resource Links |
